Vitani's Vision
by Agent Ninety-Nine
Summary: Vitani's causing trouble again. This time she tries to fool Zira into thinking that Scar has changed his mind about his heir...


"Gotcha!" The lioness cub sailed through the air onto her darker brother's back, pinning him to the ground. He gave a squeak of surprise, his legs spraddled out and clawing the earth frantically. With a twist and a leap Vitani was off him, but he barely had time to scramble to his feet before she swung around and knocked him back down, this time for keeps. 

"Gotcha again," she observed unnecessarily, stretching out a hind foot and licking it in a pleased, catlike way. Kovu struggled out from under her, the quiff of fur that would one day be a mane ruffled and hanging in his eyes. He pouted; nobody likes to be bested by a mere sister. 

"You're useless, Kovu." Vitani sniffed in disgust. "You can't pounce, you can't fight, you can't stalk. If you weren't Scar's heir no one would bother with you." 

"Is that so?" The brown cub extended his claws and tried to think up a suitably stinging put-down. "Well...well, I _am_ Scar's heir. So _nyah_!" He stuck out his tongue and padded angrily away, his coat rumpled and his dignity in pieces. 

Vitani sat swishing her tail. She loved her twin, but it burned her up that their mother paid so much attention to him. He was nothing special, really. _She_ was the smartest, the strongest _and_ the bravest. But no matter how often she defeated Kovu in their cub battles, Zira had eyes only for her boy child. All because Scar, the former king of the Pridelands and Zira's mate, had picked Kovu to be his successor. Sometimes Vitani wished Scar hadn't died just so she could give him a piece of her mind. 

"If Scar was around now he'd pick me!" she yelled after Kovu's retreating behind. Suddenly her blue eyes narrowed and her brow puckered under her blonde bangs. She was having an idea. 

"If Scar was around now...hmm. Yes. Yes!" She leaped up and spun in a circle, chasing her tail in gleeful excitement. 

Night in the Outlands. Even the termites were still, though Nuka's right hind leg scratched compulsively at his flank as he slept. Kovu was curled in his cradle, visible only as a dark hump. Zira lay stretched at the entrance to their den. She seldom slept heavily, her senses always alert. So when Vitani's back arched suddenly and the cub moaned in her sleep, her mother came silently awake and looked and listened and scented without making a move. 

Zira's head swivelled to examine her daughter. The tan cub was twitching and shuddering, her eyes screwed shut. She kneaded the air, claws protruding and retracting to some unheard rhythm. Then she spoke. 

"Scar," murmured Vitani. "Yes, Scar. I understand. Yes..." She moaned softly, and her body relaxed. Soon she was breathing softly again, to all appearances deep in slumber. But, face hidden under her coiled tail, Vitani smirked. 

Kovu's twin yawned all through breakfast. Her tiredness wasn't feigned; staying awake until she was sure her mother was asleep had been no easy task. 

"Are you all right, Vitani? Didn't you sleep well?" Zira seemed more concerned with her daughter than usual, and the cub's heart gave a joyful bound. She would have to play this next stage carefully, though. 

"Not really. I had a funny dream," she said, rubbing her eyes. 

"Were there hyaenas in it? Rrr!" Kovu bounced over and patted at his sister's tail. 

"Get off, Kovu!" Vitani snapped. And for once, her mother agreed with her. 

"Yes darling, go with Nuka. Your sister and I are talking." Zira curled a lean paw around Vitani's shoulders and purred. "Tell me about this dream." 

"Well...there was a strange lion in it. He was brown like Kovu, with a black mane and green eyes." Vitani was too young to remember Scar, but she had often quizzed Nuka about him. Her big brother, proud to parade his knowledge and a great admirer of the dead king, was only too happy to talk about him. 

"And he had a terrible scar over one eye!"   
"Which eye?" Zira pressed her nose against her daughter's. Vitani gulped and thought hard. Had Nuka ever specified where Scar's distinguishing mark lay? She crossed her toes for luck. 

"Left?" 

It was the right answer - she could tell from the way Zira's eyes gleamed as she said it. 

"Scar..." Zira breathed. "It was Scar!" Her eyes narrowed. "Is this one of your tricks, Vitani? It will go badly for you if it is." She bowed her head reverently as she thought of her dead mate. 

"It was just a dream, Mother," Vitani said carelessly, shrugging. But Zira stared hungrily at her daughter. 

"What did he say?" she demanded. 

Vitani scratched her head, pretending to think hard. "That he had a message for me. And then...I can't remember any more." 

Zira let out her breath. "Go and play, Vitani," she told her daughter. "But tell me if you have this dream again." 

"Sure!" Vitani promised, scampering away. 

It was time for Kovu's training, but Zira remained in her lair, deep in thought. Vitani and Kovu had been less than a month old when Scar died. They couldn't possibly remember him. She had heard before now of lions and lionesses who spoke with the spirits of the dead in their sleep, saw visions of the future and even controlled their dreams so they could fly like birds, journeying far across Africa without leaving their den. Vitani had never struck her as a particularly sensitive or spiritual cub, but then she didn't pay all that much attention to Vitani. She would keep a close eye on her from now on. If her daughter could really speak with Scar... 

Ordinarily Zira would not have been fooled for a moment by Vitani's act. But she wanted to believe so badly. Under the great strain of leading a pride on her own in this harsh terrain, she often appealed to Scar for guidance and sometimes felt that his presence was near, guiding and comforting her. 

"Why do you never show yourself to _me_, Scar?" she asked, looking upwards as if hoping to see the dark lion's face in the clouds. 

Kovu and Vitani were engaged in rough-and-tumble, Nuka looking on with a bored air. His stomach was rumbling and he wanted to go off and hunt mice in the long grass, but his younger siblings were tricky little creatures and prone to vanishing as soon as his back was turned. When his mother appeared he gave a sigh of relief and slunk away. 

"Go for his throat, Vitani! What have I taught you?" Immediately Zira began to organise their play-fight into a deadly serious training session. "Kovu, defend yourself!" They were too young to do any real harm to each other, their teeth only just getting used to meat instead of milk and their paws mere mittens of fur and pad. Vitani was winning, as usual. But instead of flying into a rage and abusing Kovu for his lack of skill, Zira watched the little lioness keenly. Kovu's physical resemblance to Scar was startling, but now that she looked at Vitani she saw echoes of her mate in her cunning, hooded eyes and the way she held herself. Or was she swayed by the significance of Vitani's dream? Zira shook her head, trying to puzzle out her own feelings. 

Vitani's taunts had pushed Kovu just a little too far. Suddenly, instead of cowering back under her blows he smacked her hard in the jaw. Vitani slipped and her head banged against a rock. 

Kovu gave a horrified gasp and ran over to lick and nuzzle his sister. Zira raced across to the cubs. But Vitani sat up straight, her eyes focused on something they could not see. Kovu's hackles rose. 

"Don't touch her!" Zira snapped, her gaze fixed on her daughter. And Vitani spoke. 

"Scar...I am ready." She cocked her head as if listening intently, then nodded. "I am to be your heir. I am your chosen one." 

Kovu and Zira looked at each other, startled and wondering. Vitani shook herself from head to tail and dropped from her bolt upright position to her usual slouch. "Oww, Kovu! That really hurt! I'm gonna get ya for that!" 

Before she could return to the fray, Zira had grabbed her neck and lifted her up. She set the cub down on a rock and looked intently at her.   
"What did you mean by calling yourself Scar's heir?"   
"I...didn't! What are you talking about?" Vitani's expression was a picture of wounded innocence.   
"You're such a fibber, Vitani! You went all weird and then you said you were Scar's heir. _Hey_!" Kovu gave an indignant little yelp. "_I'm_ Scar's heir! Not _you_!" 

"Quiet, Kovu!" Zira snapped. "Out of my way, both of you. Mother needs to think." 

The wrestling match was abandoned after Vitani's injury. Kovu went off with Nuka to practise his tracking, while his sister rested in the shade. Despite her aching head she was tremendously pleased with herself. What a golden opportunity - and how well she had handled it! Any fool could follow a script, but it took a genius to improvise. Alone in the dark and quiet, Vitani hugged herself. 

Zira did not know what to think. Scar had chosen her son to be his heir. He had not even mentioned Vitani. But the cubs had been newborns then, barely alive. Naturally he had chosen the boy; a king wants a son, a strong prince to mark his territory and defend his lionesses when he is gone. But Scar was a king no longer. He had been ousted by Simba, and the duty of his heir was firstly to avenge him. 

As her cubs grew, Zira had had her doubts about Kovu. Despite all her efforts he remained a gentle little soul; sassy and rude sometimes, but always direct. There was no doubt that he was bright, but he had none of Scar's skill in scheming and planning. He had never attempted a trick or deception in his life. Vitani, on the other paw...Vitani was more like her mother. She knew how to bide her time and strike when her enemy least expected it. She lied brazenly and would use any method she could to get her own way. 

Kovu would grow into a strong lion. He was big for his age already and his large paws indicated that he would reach a great size. Simba, aging and grown soft from living the easy life in his fertile Pridelands, would be no match for him when he reached his adult peak. But Kovu would be a blunt instrument, springing on Simba and killing him quickly. While the image gave Zira great pleasure, another picture suddenly replaced it: Simba betrayed, tricked, destroyed, dying a lingering death which he would face knowing it to be inevitable and awful. Impotent, angry, suffering; thus would Simba roar his last. Zira could not mete out such a death; Simba knew her too well, and she would never be able to gain his confidence in order to get the foothold she would need. But Vitani - Vitani grown into a beautiful, lissom lioness, with a sly tongue and a melting expression, Vitani could deal Simba a death ten times worse than defeat at Kovu's fangs. 

"Yes. Yes!" cried Zira out loud, just as her daughter had done when she came up with her own wicked scheme. "Scar, my love. You are a genius!" 

The two lion cubs and the adolescent lined up for Zira's morning inspection, awaiting her approval and instructions. She slunk out of the termite mound and examined her children. 

"Nuka, can't you smarten yourself up a bit? And for crying out loud, stop _scratching_!" she ordered her eldest son. He promised humbly to try his best, but was thrown by what came next. "Take Kovu and...play with him, or something. Today Vitani and I are going to undertake some _special_ training." 

As Vitani followed her mother, she looked over her shoulder and poked her tongue triumphantly out at Kovu. 

"Nyah!" she taunted. 

So it went for the next couple of weeks. Vitani was very reticent about the special training she was receiving at her mother's paws, and Zira kept grimly silent. But there was no doubt the honey-coloured cub was blossoming as the sole recipient of Zira's tutelage. She had always been fit and agile, but now her abilities were being targeted and honed to perfection. She seemed more confident, and even her scruffy coat gleamed with health and hung more neatly about her person. For the first time in her life she was the top cub. She received the first portion of Zira's kills as well as any delicious treats that the lioness might - sometimes literally - dig up. She slept up out of the draughts in the cradle of bark which had once been Kovu's domain. 

As for Kovu, he found himself neglected. At first this came as sweet relief. All his life he had been bullied and harried, pushed, pulled and coerced by his mother to become something he was not. This blessed break from the endless training gave him a chance to play on his own, wander and explore. But he resented Vitani's insufferable smugness from the start, and spending his days in the company of smelly Nuka and his host of parasitic guests soon palled. 

"Welcome to the losing team, Termite." Nuka told him one day. To begin with he gloried in Kovu's downfall and used the opportunity to try all the mean tricks an older brother could play on a younger, and that he had never dared to employ before for fear of Zira. But as the days passed he began to see Kovu as an ally. They had both blown their chances to be top of the heap. 

"I'm _not_ a loser! I never wanted to be stupid Scar's dumb heir anyway!" Kovu snapped back. To his surprise, the normally passive Nuka unsheathed his claws and growled.   
"Don't you dare talk about Scar like that. You didn't know him at all. He was a great King, and I loved him." 

Kovu lowered his head and stayed quiet for a while, shocked into silence by the strength of Nuka's feelings. At last, he said: "I guess Vitani was right when she said if Scar was around now, he'd pick her as heir instead. I'm just useless. I couldn't do what Mother wanted and now I'm history." 

"Vitani said that?" Nuka processed the thought. "Boy, that was mean." He gave Kovu a gentle prod with his paw. "We'll stick together, you and me. Huh? We'll make Mother proud of us." 

"Sure," Kovu said unenthusiastically. Unlike Nuka, he had aims in life other than pleasing Zira. And his big brother had never been his favourite lion. But he was lonely without Vitani always available for play and mischief. As though Nuka had been his absent father, Kovu snuggled between the adolescent's forepaws and slept. Nuka laid his bristly chin on the cub's back. Something was troubling him, and he could not work out what it was. 

It was dusk, and Vitani was skipping home happily from another day of her mother's exclusive company. Zira had stayed out in the hope of catching some dinner. It was a short way to their den from here, and she had no worries about Vitani travelling alone. She could not know what was waiting for her daughter. 

The lion seemed to rise up out of the ground in front of her, so suddenly that Vitani could only stare and gasp. In the shadow of a giant rock he appeared as only a face, hanging in the air high above her head - a face framed with a black, glossy mane and bearing a livid scar across the left eye. 

"Scar?" Vitani squeaked, seeming to puff up as the hair on her back and sides stuck out on end. 

"Vitani. Why have you taken my name in vain?" rumbled the stranger lion. The stench of blood seemed to cling about him, making the cub shudder. 

"I wanted to...I wanted...I just wanted Mother's attention," she muttered. "And I'm better than Kovu! I really am!" she added, getting some of her spunk back. 

"It was not your choice to make, but mine. I chose Kovu," thundered Scar. "He is my heir. Not you!" There was a swift movement and the lion was gone - Vitani could not tell how or where. He must have vanished into thin air. Bristling and squalling, she ran to her mother. 

"Vitani! What is it?" Zira dropped the baby hare she held in her jaws and ran to her cub.   
"Mother! I saw Scar!"   
"Did he speak to you again?" Zira asked. Since Vitani's first vision she had been hoping greedily for another - perhaps a message from Scar to her.   
"Yes...no...Mother, I was lying before. But just now, I really saw him and he was angry with me. I'm sorry." 

Zira's mind churned. Vitani had lied to her, and tried to use Scar's death for her own ends. By rights she should tear the cub's throat out. But...it had been a good plan. She licked Vitani's ear gently. 

"You felt left out because Kovu got all my attention?"   
Vitani nodded, suddenly hopeful that she might be let off. 

"Well, these past weeks I've seen what you can do. I will not neglect you in future. You will _both_ be trained to kill. But never forget that Kovu is Scar's chosen heir and more important than all of us. Got it?" 

Vitani assured her mother that she had. Zira smiled, satisfied, then cuffed the cub so hard she rolled over several times before coming to rest. 

"_And never lie to me again_!" 

In the shelter of a thorn bush, hidden from prying eyes, Nuka carefully washed off the black mud which camouflaged his body and darkened the straggly mane he had supplemented with strands of weed. He licked a forepaw and, closing his eye, wiped away the false scar the blood of a fieldmouse had provided. As an afterthought, he ate the mouse. 

Finally, he emerged into the night and looked pleadingly up at the sky. 

"I'm sorry, Scar," he whispered. "I didn't mean to be disrespectful. I just couldn't let Vitani mess about like that. I still don't know why you picked Kovu over me, but that was your will and I obey it." 

He bowed his head, and a gentle breeze ruffled his mane like a caress as one star shone brighter than the rest upon him. 


End file.
